


we do not thrive in the desperate dry

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [51]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, and it really couldn't be more different, but she's not about to tell Jester that bc she just has to make things difficult, in which Beau said she would leave & everyone seems to think its the same as Beau wants to leave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25859308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt: petrichor - the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of dry weather
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [51]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 2
Kudos: 108





	we do not thrive in the desperate dry

The moorlands aren’t what Jester was expecting. Nor what Yasha was expecting, if Jester is to go off the way Yasha keeps stopping every fifteen minutes or so, craning her head to look around as if something were missing, some landmark she can almost recall the shape of.

If it were up to Jester, she’d say that what is missing…is the moor. There’s no marshland around—it’s all just dry, cracked earth. It looks more like the Barbed Fields than any of them care to mention; that memory is too well tied to everything that followed. It’s easier to forget.

Still, they make their way south and east.

Seated in the cart they had thought might need to be left behind rather than drag through the marshland muds, Jester is curled into crush of bags and blankets like her own personal throne. It’s the ultimate comfort, yes, but it’s also the one place where she can keep an eye on everyone. Cad is doing it too – keeping them all within range in case something happens – from his place driving the cart, a keen eye looking out from beneath his floppy grass hat. A hat is a really good idea, actually. Jester wishes she had one herself; the cream pages of her notebook are almost blinding beneath the sun, reflecting the light. She lifts her eyes over to Yasha. She’s scouting ahead. Jester isn’t sure whether to laugh or not when she watches Yasha stoop down and take up a handful of the dirt. It’s a dusty brown and light, dry— _nothing good in this, nothing at all_ , Cad had grumbled when they’d stepped down into the plain—and Yasha taps the point of her tongue onto the handful, spits it out. She flings a small portion of it into the air; it’s still and only drifts a little to the south, the way they’re travelling.

Yasha stands and continues on, Veth at her side.

Fjord isn’t far from them, holding up what looks like a long-dried root. Cad and Caleb sit in the front of the cart, guiding the mule.

And Beau – Jester shifts, scanning behind them for Beau who has been following for most of the day. As many times as Cad has politely, and then not so politely, told her to stay within thirty feet, she keeps drifting to trail more than twice that. It could be a slower pace as she watches out for the wild moorbounders they’ve been told hunt around these parts.

It could be something more.

‘Beau! Beau, come sit with me!’

She can’t see clearly from this distance but Jester can feel Beau’s eyes on her. A moment and then – Beau lifts a hand in a wave, shakes her head.

Jester’s tail lashes, slapping against the bag at her side. Worry, upset and – honestly? _anger_ – coils it up tight at her side. Coils her gut up tight, face crumpled into a frown. The nib of her quill slashes a black line across her page. Beau said she wasn’t avoiding her. She said it right to her face. So _why_ does Jester still feel like she is?

She’ll just have to ask her again.

Shoving her much-beloved, much-battered notebook into her pack, Jester waits for a good moment to slide off the back of the cart. She stumbles a moment on the uneven ground but regains her feet and, smiling as brilliantly as she is able, she waits for Beau to catch up.

Beau notices her. And Beau hesitates.

The hitch in her step is enough to make Jester’s smile slip and however she had imagined easing Beau into the question is gone from her mind as hurt transforms into something Jester cannot hold back.

‘You don’t even want to _walk_ with me anymore?’

At least Beau doesn’t pretend, doesn’t try to lie to her, doesn’t try to convince Jester that she hadn’t seen what she has seen.

‘It’s not that, Jes,’

‘You are avoiding me, though, aren’t you? Or - or someone, I guess it doesn’t have to be me.’ Even as she says it, she can see that there’s a tightening around Beau’s eyes, her lips, so minute that Jester wouldn’t have caught it if not for the blazing sun and the shadows it throws on even the most minor of changes. Beau tries not to let her expression change, but effort is a tell in and of itself.

Jester’s heart seizes, throbs painfully. She wilts. ‘It _is_ me.’

‘Jes,’

‘Oh.’ Wrapping her arms around her own waist in a loose hug, Jester turns sharply on the spot. She walks briskly back to her original perch, to the cart that has continued to trundle away.

There’s a moment before something scuffs in the dust behind her and then, ‘Jester, wait!’ Jester doesn’t wait; she hears the dull thud of footsteps, Beau running after her. ‘ _Wait!_ Hold on – gimme a fuckin’ chance to talk, would you?’

‘And say _what_? That you don’t want to be my friend? That you don’t want to be here with us at all?’

With a sound – of annoyance? upset? – Beau quickens her step until she’s in front of Jester and doesn’t move even when Jester doesn’t stop in time—she just brings her hands up to steady Jester when she steps back hurriedly.

They’re awfully close together like this. Beau’s hands come up to brace on her shoulders; when Jester steps back, her ankle twists, turning when it fits a whole loft of nothing, a tuft of dry grass and dust collapsing under her boot. With a squeak she grabs at Beau’s hip. They really are awfully close. If Jester looks up, she can see clear blue sky and Beau. Beau, whose eyes are a shade darker—the way the sky ought to look, the right colour for a sky, in Jester’s opinion. They’re dark – in shadow now as Beau tilts her head down a fraction, staring down at Jester.

Her heart _thuds_.

‘I would’ve thought this was too close for you,’ Jester bites out.

Beau’s fingers tighten reflexively on her shoulders before she lets go, shame-faced, and takes a small step back. She doesn’t speak, at first. A small frown, nowhere close to a scowl, combined with the way she worries at her bottom lip with blunt teeth, and all of it means – is Beau _nervous_?

Jester doesn’t think she’s ever seen Beau afraid. Not when they faced the manticore, or the hydra, or the demons beneath the well. Maybe when they faced the Hand. Not when she was fighting him, but when Beau had pressed the knife into Jester’s hand and leapt back through the closing doors for Fjord. Maybe then.

‘I’m…an asshole,’ Beau tells her after a moment. ‘But I’m—I’m trying not to be, y’know?’ The question sounds genuine, entreatment. _Have you noticed_? the lilt of those words asks. _Have I been better?_

Jester nods. She’s seen Beau’s growth – been impressed by it, got to be a part of it, or she’d like to think so, anyway. She doesn’t see what it has to do with this, now, but she’ll let Beau talk.

‘I never wanna hurt you, Jes,’

Her decision to let Beau talk uninterrupted leaves as soon as it comes.

‘Well you have!’

Beau winces. Ducks her head in a nod. ‘Yeah, I – I know.’

‘I just don’t get it.’ Jester shakes her head. ‘You’re not saying that you’re not going to do it anymore. So, you know you’re – you’re doing it on purpose. Aren’t you?’ The answer is clear in Beau’s eyes. Sky burned blue. _Yes_. Jester flinches back. Sucks in a steadying breath. ‘I—okay then,’ she says, and tries not to let the word tremble. Mostly, she thinks she succeeds. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

‘ _No_.’

Maybe it’s silly or naïve but Jester believes her. Despite herself, despite her fear, she believes Beau. ‘Okay. Did _you_ do something wrong?’

Beau stares at her a moment. Her answer comes slower this time; she holds it on the tip of her tongue like she isn’t sure of it, isn’t sure she wants to commit to it. ‘No,’ she says finally.

Jester sighs explosively, throws up her hands. ‘Well, what do we do with _that_? How do we fix it?’ Beau’s eyes drop; Jester jabs a finger toward her, taps it on her sternum. Beau tenses but doesn’t move away. If anything, she leans forward ever so slightly before she returns to where she had been. ‘Don’t say it! Don’t you say it, Beau! We _are_ gonna fix this because I miss you and I hate this and you’re _right here_.’ Jester taps again, a little harder. ‘So why do you feel so far away? You just have to be _here_ , Beau.’

‘Jes,’

Jester narrows her eyes at her, a warning.

Beau persists. She’s brave like that. ‘I dunno if it’s that easy.’

‘Why not? We can make it that easy.’

Beau looks like she could say more. She doesn’t. Shakes her head with a fond smile she hasn’t worn for—days? Weeks? Standing so close, smiling so gently at her… Jester feels dizzy for a split second and leans close.

‘I’m—need some water,’ Jester mutters. ‘It’s really hot.’

‘Water. Right, yeah, hold on—I’ll get you some—‘ Beau tries to race off—and is yanked right back into place with a strong hand clutching her wrist. Beau hestitates, looking from Jester’s hand on her wrist to her face. ‘Or…I can walk you back to the cart?’ she guesses.

Jester nods.

They walk slowly together, feet finding the same rhythm as they catch up to the slow-moving cart and the rest of their friends. Jester watches Cad fully relax for the first time since that morning once they come into range of his very capable ears. Beau’s hand swings open at her side and Jester catches it with her own, hooks her pinkie around Beau’s, whose pace stutters before recovering. Nothing is fully understood, or fixed, but at least Beau is standing with her now.

The raindrops fall seemingly from nowhere. Thin gossomer clouds have stretched out over the sky in seconds and Yasha turns her head up to them and smiles as the rain starts to drench her face, her hair. The rest of her friends, her family, stand around her and watch as the dry earth darkens and pools with water that runs into the open cracks and disappears or settles like a mirror on the hard baked earth. It isn’t the moorlands as she remembers them but come morning, the vast field will be carpeted with green.


End file.
